Quezon City signs agreements with national agencies for more ease in doing business

The Quezon City Government signed on April 14, 2015, memoranda of agreement with 11 national government institutions to further improve the process of doing business in the city.

Mayor Herbert Bautista signed the agreements, representing the benchmark city for Ease of Doing Business in the Philippines, with the heads of the Department of Finance, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Securities and Exchange Commission, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Social Security System, Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG), Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines, and the National Competitiveness Council (NCC).

The signing ceremony was held in the JV del Rosario Hall at the AIM Conference Center in Makati .

The signing of the agreement formalized the commitment to implement reforms undertaken by the government institutions thru the NCC’s Gameplan 3.0 which synergizes government processes related to the ease of doing business in the country. This includes streamlining and simplifying the processes across 10 transactions related to “Ease of Doing Business’, which is gauged and monitored annually by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The package of reforms involving starting a business included merging several steps to create single-window applications across the information technology systems of different agencies, the removal of several outdated procedures, and the introduction of enhanced one-stop-shop procedures.

The Quezon City Government has been enhancing its one-stop shop operations by putting under one linked system the zoning and business registration functions, and co-locating the Bureau of Fire representative in its Business One Stop Shop. Its one-time assessment for new business registrants has eliminated the separate step for paying for community taxes. In May, it will be ready to launch its process to accept online registration of new corporations.

A unified form, as well as accessible and convenient online payment systems were adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), BIR, SSS, Pag-IBIG, and PhilHealth. Under the new Integrated Business Registration system, when a corporation registers with the SEC, it will also be able to obtain its BIR tax identification number, as well as Pag-IBIG Fund, PhilHealth and SSS Employer Numbers (ERN) at the SEC as well.

Altogether, the reforms will reduce the process for registering new corporations from 16 steps and 34 days to 6 steps and 8 days.(Maureen Quiñones, PAISO)